A. D. I 721. I ig 



fum of L^oo.ooo, which each of them was obHged to pay to the king's 

 life, as now remained unpaid ; in confideration of the difficulties which 

 thofe two corporations laboured under. 



According to the Brit'ijh Merchant [V. \i. p. 220, ed. 1721] the Bri- 

 tifh filk manufadure amounted to LyoOjOOO per annum in value more 

 than it was at the revolution ; we importing, till that period, annually 

 from France to the value of L500,ooo in wrought filks of all kinds. 



He adds, what was alfo well known, that till then there was little elfe 

 made in England but brown paper ; whereas now there are two thirds 

 of all the white paper we ufe made at home. 



The increafe of the French fiftiery on the banks of Newfoundland, 

 and in the neighbouring purts, was fo great about this time, that, as the 

 fame author [l'^. ii. p. 290] alleges, they employed yearly upwards of 400 

 fail of (hips therein, from St. Malo, Grandville, Rochelle, St. Martin's, 

 Bayonne, St. Jean de Luz, Sibour, &c. whereby they not only now 

 fupplied themfelves entirely with fiih, which they formerly had from 

 England, but likewife rivalled us much in the fifh trade to Spain and Italy, 



According to Egede, a Danifh author, and zealous miilionary to Old 

 Greenland, the Greenland company of Bergen in Norway now fentout 

 a colony to refettle Old Greenland, after a large Norwegian colony had 

 been deftroyed, or otherwife loft, in that country fome hundreds of years 

 before. Mr. Egede, who went with this new colony, relates, that they 

 found there fome marks of old habitations and of antient tillage. He 

 thinks that the old Norwegian colony muft have been deftroyed by the 

 favage natives, or by an unuTual peftilence ; and that the country was 

 forgotten by the Danes and Norwegians till the year 161 9, when fome 

 fruitlcfs attempts were made from Copenhagen, to find out the country 

 where that old colony had been fettled. 



After all, it is much to be doubted, whether there be commercial ma- 

 terials in that moft cold and barren country, fufficient to induce any 

 European nation to be at much expenfe in planting there, peltry and 

 fifli oil being probably its only product, and the country being very thin 

 of inhabitants, and thofe too very miferable ones. We accordingly 

 hear nothing farther of the fuccefs of that frefh attempt for colonizing 

 in it till the year 1736. 



There were employed this year in the whale fifhcry to Greenland and 

 Davis's ftraits. 



From fundry parts of Holland - 25 1 fliips. 



From Hamburgh - - " 55 



From Bremen - - - - 24 



From the ports in the Bay of Bifcay - 20 

 From Bergen in Norway - - 5 



♦ Total 355 fliips. 



